


In the Eye of the Beholder

by ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong (Sagnessagiel)



Series: AUIdeas Calendar Fills 2016 [5]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Figure Skater!Mikleo, Foot in his mouth!Sorey, M/M, No Explicit Violence, be warned all ye who do not care for that, but the threat is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 18:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10169318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagnessagiel/pseuds/ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong
Summary: (Late) Entry #11: Breaking the Rules AUIt's very late but I had the idea for it so I wanted to post it. Enjoy!





	

Sorey is unsure what possessed him to go to the lake today. It is a Monday, which is one of the longest days of his workweek, and usually at this time he has nothing more in mind than getting home and collapsing on his bed. Visiting the lake is something he reserves for Thursdays, when he gets off early and can sit by the edge of the water (or ice, at this time of year) and read one of the many books he owns. It is not entirely without rhyme or reason reason, as not all the books in his collection are purely informational. He in fact owns three volumes which could be attributed to the fictional spectrum, and he would much rather be alone in the woods reading them for fear of being implicated. Such frivolous activity was banned long ago, as everyone knows.

No one ever comes this far out into the woods unless they live here, and Sorey is one of three people he knows that do. Todd and Grace, however, are at work in the afternoons and well into the night. He is safe to read in peace, and no one really has to know about his Thursday activities if he does not harm or disturb anyone. That is the argument he uses to allow himself this alone time.

Today, he does not have a book with him. Instead he simply finds himself walking quite aimlessly into the woods with his gloved hands in his pockets. It has been a long day at work, one which included rude customers and an irritable manager. As a result he finds himself restless and frustrated enough not to want to go home just yet. He wanders, and the lake finds him rather than him finding it.

In private moments, he has called this lake his own in his mind. It lies closer to his house than that of Todd and Grace, and even though it lies on public land he is the only one who ever visits it. At least, that was the impression he had before this day, when he pushes his way through the last crossed branches and catches sight of a figure far out on the ice. The sun is almost down, but there is light enough yet to see them out there. Sorey freezes up, his troubled thoughts grinding to an abrupt halt.

It takes him a moment to place just what this new person is doing out there. He takes a step forward and squints, and the tight movements of the mystery person branch out into a wider motion. They glide over the ice with little to no friction, going an impressive distance before they slow down. The arc turns into a spin, and Sorey spots the metal blades beneath them.

A skater. On Sorey's lake. Not just that, but they look to be figure skating. A highly illegal and most frowned upon activity. Sorey's stomach turns with rough ingrained disgust.

The person - a man, he thinks - ends his arc with a tight spin that looks dizzying even from Sorey's distance. He raises his arms above his head and continues to spin, gesturing and arching as he does so. Sorey notes with a twinge of stubborn doubt that it looks surprisingly graceful. Appealing, even. He has long hair which flows with his movements, and thin winter clothing that leaves little weight to slow him down.

It becomes something not unlike a tragedy, in that Sorey feels a strict tension in his chest at the sight and yet becomes unable to tear his eyes away. A few long bounds on the glassy surface, and the skater glides as easily as on clouds from one side of the lake to the other. He raises his arms, and lowers them slowly. His knees bend, and he leaps into a spinning jump with a snap that makes Sorey gasp sharply. His hands spread out as he lands, and Sorey gets a brief glimpse of a serene expression on his face.

Sorey stares helplessly as the skater works his way through an entire routine. He sees several more jumps which grow simpler as time passes. He begins to notice a slight falter in the skater's form, likely exhaustion beginning to wear on him.

He is unaware of how long he has been standing in place, simply staring as a highly illegal and breathtakingly effortless activity takes place right before his eyes. The tension in his chest feels noticeably lighter, and has now been replaced almost entirely by a pressing guilt at enjoying this almost barbaric display. He watches as the skater slows to a stop, closer to where Sorey is than where he started. It does not occur to him that they will end up facing each other until it becomes a reality.

It is an odd sensation to realise that this strange being - this otherdimensional creature which is capable of defying the most fundamental of human laws - is capable of looking into his eyes and realising his presence here. It takes only a split second, visible fear and shock, and then the skater has sprung into action. He leaps forward and quickly gains momentum.

For a moment, Sorey forgets how to breathe. This graceful creature is heading straight for him with a murderous look in his eyes. Sorey splutters for a second, before he realises that he should in fact be running away. He stumbles trying to turn around, but a man on skates with momentum far outruns a man who has barely started moving. He hears the sharp scratch of skates against ice - a jump - and he is suddenly tackled from behind.

He yells in surprise but it becomes a grunt when they hit the ground together. His arms flail out, but the skater reaches out to rein them in and pin them under sharp knees. Sorey yelps, shocked and frightened.

"Wait, wait!" he hears himself exclaim. The skater does not answer. There is the sharp sound of laces dragging through leather, and a moment later the sharp blade of a skate stabs into the snow, inches from Sorey's throat.

Sorey gasps and coughs. The weight on his back is too much to unbalance without any leverage, and he becomes more aware of this with each attempted shove.

He angles his head away from the skate.

"Don't do it," he says quickly, almost to the point of jumbling the words together. "Don't hurt me, I didn't see anything!"

"Bullshit," the skater hisses above him. "I'm not getting caught because of you."

He shifts his weight, raises the skate out of Sorey's view. It becomes clear what his intention is.

"No, no stop," Sorey gasps. "I promise I won't say anything. Please."

The skater hesitates above him. All he can hear is their heavy breathing. He swallows, very aware of the movement in his throat.

"I was just walking by," he says, if only because he can still talk. "I won't tell anyone I saw anything. Nothing happened."

A long moment of agonizing silence, in which Sorey has time to think of all the regrets he has in his life. Then the skater lets out an unsteady breath.

"Swear on your parents," he says, voice shaking. "And on your own life."

Sorey's voice is breathless. "I swear, I swear on them and me. I promise."

He has stopped struggling entirely, trying his hardest to relax and appear trustworthy. He is not lying, he realises with a start, but he is also not sure he has the skater entirely convinced. He hopes that his shaky and high voice is accurately attributed to the fear he feels.

In his heart of hearts, he might be able to concede an inability to blame the skater for this outcome. If he were a liar, it would be a situation in which one or the other was sure to die. This does nothing to help him appear convincing enough.

Fear roils in his stomach. He flinches when she skate once again impacts the snow next to him. The skater has dropped it, going slack above him.

Gradually, the weight eases off and Sorey can move once more . He uses his new freedom to scramble a good few paces away, ignoring entirely the snow which seeps into his sleeves and shirt as he does so.

The skater lets him go, almost collapsing into sitting on the ground. His breathing is as laboured as Sorey's, his purple eyes trained on him. He looks wary and exhausted, licking his lips.

"You'd better be good for that," he pants. "I don't wanna have to hurt you."

Sorey pushes himself up on his hands and knees. His eyes are wide and his mouth is dry. The skater looks no less threatened. They stare each other down like cornered animals.

"I meant what I said," Sorey says once his voice comes back to him. "I won't tell a soul. I swore to you."

The skater's lips twitch in dry amusement. Sorey observes with a sort of morbid fascination that his almost-killer possesses a remarkably pretty face. He is all sharp lines and pale skin, framed and softened by long blue-white curls. His hair is swept up in a messy ponytail, his bangs falling just short of his eyes.

"Hope you mean that," he breathes. His eyes drift to the skate. "I've never killed anyone before."

Sorey looks at the skate, which now lies harmless in the snow. He imagines how much force it would take to force the thick blade through the skin of his throat. He swallows nervously.

"You can be sure I'll give you no reason to try."

The skater looks him in the eyes, and Sorey has to marvel at the inappropriateness of his heart almost skipping a beat. The more he looks at this man, the more he notices little things about him that are more than appealing. His eyes, especially, prove almost mesmerising in their bright and unusual colour.

"I think," the skater says slowly, "we should just both turn around, go in different directions, and forget this ever happened."

Sorey feels inclined to agree. Without any more information on each other, there is basically no chance of either of them being able to implicate the other. Even so, his head is still filled with the images of this man gracefully spinning on the ice. Never in his life has he seen something so beautiful, and a very small and very reckless part of him would like to ask to see it again. He squashes that part down with the brute force of pure logical reasoning.

"I come here on Thursdays," he blurts out, as though it makes any sense to say. "I end work early that day and I like to come here and read. You can avoid me perfectly if you come here outside of that."

The skater stares at him, dumbfounded. He blinks, opens his mouth.

"Alright," he stutters out. "Thank you."

"You're, uh, welcome," Sorey answers uncertainly. They look at each other for a long second, gauging the remaining threat.

Slowly, the man reaches for his abandoned skate. They never break eye contact.

"I'm going to go now," he says.

"Yeah," Sorey replies, "yeah, me too."

He watches as the other puts his skate back on and laces it up with methodical movements. The snow in it does not seem to bother him. He rises, keeping his hands out in a placating gesture and surprising Sorey once more with his capable balance. A few retreating steps, and he is once more at the edge of the ice.

"Look," the skater says. "Hopefully we won't see each other again, so um..." he hesitates and gestures awkwardly. "I'm still willing to enforce it, but I'm sorry I threatened you."

Sorey blinks. He has little to no control of his brain at this point. The words which bubble up without his permission are "Right. Yeah. Sorry for scaring you."

Judging from the skater's expression, they both feel that they should say something more. Neither does. The skater closes his mouth, licks his lips again (Sorey should not be paying attention to that) and swiftly turns on his heel to head out on the ice.

In a few swift bounds, he has made it to the other side of the lake. Sorey sees the speck of him disappear into the woods. As swiftly as it started, it is over. Silence settles over the lake once more.

Sorey sits perfectly still and stares. He cannot believe what just happened.

* * *

Whether out of fear or some sort of moral obligation, Sorey does not visit the lake outside of Thursdays after that. He comes every week, keeping to his own strange sort of rule. He would never admit out loud to a reason why.

At first, he wanted to forget the whole thing and go on as if nothing happened. The moral obligation he has to report the illegal activity was quickly squashed down by the memory of this mystery man bending and arching in the most graceful way. It is not something he wants to stop from happening, even if he is never to see it again. There was something pure - open - about the movements before the skater noticed him. Before seeing it, he could hardly have believed it existed at all. In fact, were it not for the very crisp memory of his life being threatened, he could have convinced himself that it was some sort of vivid fever dream.

He spreads out a blanket on a snow-less rock by the lake and sits down with a book in his lap. Annoyingly enough, he is unable to open it. Instead his eyes are on the icy surface, trying to place in his mind's eye the long arc of skates across the smooth expanse. The slightly bent knee, and the lightly curled arms. He made it look so effortless, so free.

Sorey sits and watches the lake for several weeks' worth of Thursday afternoons. His reading suffers greatly, but he has read through these books countless times already. Now there is a new story in his head. The speculation of how this man - this mysterious creature - came to learn such a hated art. He will not admit to hoping, but it occurs to him at one point that what he does can be described as waiting in some sense. Does it count if he does not expect it to yield anything?

It is seven weeks after his incident that he finds himself once more on that rock. The silence stays as heavy as it ever was, accented more than broken by the gradual return of the forest's many birds. They have stayed somewhere else over the winter. He does not care much to know where, as long as they return happily chirping.

Sorey is distracted by the sound of their joint song. It is peaceful and calming. It is not, however, enough to hinder him tensing up as he suddenly hears a slight sound nearby. The barest shuffle of dead leaves and snow, but unmistakably there.

He holds his breath, entirely on instinct. His gaze hones in, half expecting it to be an animal. Disbelief and doubt squeeze at his insides.

But it is there. He can see clearly, the swath of bright white hair and the shock of colour that is his eyes. Sorey's eyes widen. His heart leaps into his throat.

It is the skater. He is back. He is real.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "It’s the dystopian future, and all forms of music/dancing/art/etc. have been banned due to its strong influence to lead people down ‘dangerous’ paths of life. Character A has always been a model citizen, but there’s something alluring about the artsy, suave Character B that’s making Character A reconsider the rules."
> 
> Kind of a liberal interpretation. Pardon that.


End file.
